Northampton man brought up in Indian orphanage run by Mother Teresa puts together photographic exhibition of her life

Callum Jones

A Northampton man who was brought in an orphanage set up by Mother Teresa has organised a photographic exhibition of her work to mark her passage into sainthood.

Gautam Lewis was born in Kolkata, India in 1977 and spent two years at Mother Theresa’s Missionaries of Charity after being abandoned at the age of three when he contracted polio.

Gautam Lewis lived in an orphanage run by Mother Teresa from the age of three to seven

Mr Lewis had two years of operations at the Rehabilitation Centre for Children where he was introduced to Dr Patricia Lewis, a nuclear physicist.

Dr Lewis adopted Gautam and they moved permanently to England, where Gautam attended the Bedales School in Hampshire.

During his career, the 39-year-old, who now lives in his grandfather’s house in who now lives in East Hunsbury, Northampton, has worked as a band manager, a photographer and a filmmaker.

He is also a qualified pilot and has set up a flying school for disabled people at Cranfield Airport.

Gautam Lewis, of Northampton, is a qualified pilot despite having troubling walking after contracting polio when he was a child

Gautam has now been invited to Kalkota on August 26 to celebrate Mother Teresa being declared a saint by Pope Francis.

He has put together a series of photographs that depict Mother Teresa’s work with the dying and the destitute, and with homeless children including portraits of abandoned children living in the care of the Missionary of Charities Kolkata Orphanage, a place where Gautam once called his home.

The exhibition, which he hopes to display in England, will also explore the lives of those affected by disability, poverty and lack of opportunities.

Mr Lewis said: “It is going to be very strange going back as there are a lot of demons in my head from that period.

“My life was really horrible at that point.

“The photographic exhibition is very personal but it also feels like a celebration of the life of Mother Teresa and her becoming a saint.”